Are we giving away the greatest gift
By Lady Liberty
web posted January 2, 2006
I recently sent a congratulatory note to a young woman about to
have a birthday. In part, I wrote, "Never forget we are all born
free. The question is whether or not we can live that way."
Freedom is among certain rights to which we are all entitled,
merely by virtue of being born. Our Founding Fathers codified
that notion when they wrote a list of some of what they called
"unalienable rights."
While the young woman in question celebrates her birthday with
her friends and family, it occurred to me that millions around the
world are celebrating other recognitions of birth. On Christmas
Day, Christians honor their belief that their savior was born some
2,000 years ago. With the Winter Solstice, pagans look to the
shortest day of the year as being the one that signals a turning
point toward longer days and the rebirth of the sun god. Those
who mark Hanukkuh not only commemorate the anniversary of
an event believed to be miraculous, but more symbolically the
birth of religious freedom for Jews in that place and time. Even
the recently invented Kwanzaa points in part to matters of
harvest, one of the earliest and most obvious symbols of birth,
growth, and death that there is.
Unfortunately, there are several other events that are marring the
otherwise celebratory time of the year, and they have far more to
do with endings than with beginnings, and they relate more to
slavery than to freedom. For example, consider the recent
revelations that, after 9/11, President Bush authorized the NSA
to eavesdrop on American communications originating in the
United States without benefit of a warrant. According to The
New York Times story:
"Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence
agency has monitored the international telephone calls and
international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
people inside the United States without warrants over the past
three years in an effort to track possible 'dirty numbers' linked to
Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks
warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications."
The National Security Agency has been barred in the past from
spying on American soil with very limited exceptions involving
foreign nationals. But in the name of theWar on Terror, the NSA
was given an expanded mission that didn't include any
recognition of unalianable rights. Since The New York Times
broke the story, many other media outlets have picked it up, and
condemnation of the executive order has been widespread. Law
enforcement could, said most, have gotten warrants if there was
suspicion.
On the December 18 presentation of Meet the Press, guest
Condoleezza Rice was asked about the matter. The Secretary of
State repeatedly said that she wasn't a lawyer, but that the
President had exercised legal and constitutional authority in doing
what he did. When the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA) was mentioned and Rice was asked why the president
seek warrants under its auspices, Rice claimed that the foreign
nationals FISA was established to deal with were "different."
When reporter Tim Russert asked her why the authority Rice
said the president had wasn't cited, Rice ducked. And when
Russert noted that Richard Nixon had gotten in a good deal of
trouble for monitoring American communications, she tap-
danced elsewhere.
As always, the War on Terror is not merely an excuse, but a
plausible one. There is danger, and none of us who recall 9/11
vividly even four years later are keen to see another similar
attack occur. Yet even accepting that there are good reasons for
surveillance means that warrants would immediately be issued if
requested. So why not get the warrants and honor the
Constitution and liberty while defending the Constitution and
liberty?
Then, too, there is the matter of "mission creep." That has
proved all too convenient in the War on Terror. In the case of
the PATRIOT Act, we were promised when it was originally
passed that it was a measure that would be used to protect
America and Americans from more terror attacks. Since the
law's original passage, however, it's been used for everything
from drug to money laundering investigations. The fact the
provisions have been and will be used for far more than terror-
related investigations was first covert, and now overt. In fact,
when the Act was being debated in Congress in recent weeks,
the federal Drug Czar himself piped up and suggested the
PATRIOT Act would do great things to help control the
manufacture and sale of methamphetamine.
It gets worse. Now, despite the fact that the War on Terror is
supposedly focused on the Middle East and the dangers
represented to the Western world by militant Islam, it seems we
could be facing something not seen in this country in fifty years:
investigations into "un-American activities." Just this fall, a
perfectly innocent research project turned chilling for a college
student who requested a copy of a book from the library. His
request, complete with the proper paperwork, was for a
translation of Mao Tse-Tung's "Little Red Book." It resulted not
in his getting the book but in a visit from federal agents.
His professor now worries about teaching courses on
Communism, fascism, or terrorism because he fears his other
students might be subjected to similar circumstances if they dare
to conduct any research. As for other books in specific or in
general, well, there's a reason libraries have led the charge
against the PATRIOT Act from day one with its potential for
warrantless demands of reading lists from libraries and
bookstores.
REAL ID, due to be implemented in 2008, will see Americans
tracked wherever they work, bank, or travel. Checkpoints
begun for drunk or drug-impaired drivers are now being
conducted on occasion for other reasons, including one that was
apparently set up to question drivers to see whether or not they'd
witnessed a crime committed on a particular roadway. Cameras,
many including microphones, are everywhere. Patdown searches
aren't just common but are mandated at some events, including
NFL football games.
We're supposed to be celebrating birth and rebirth in December.
We're even supposed to appreciate the sacrifices made by our
fighting men and women overseas for what we're told is the birth
of democracy and freedom in Iraq. And many of us do. At the
same time, however, we're seeing the loss of many of the same
things here we claim to be working for everywhere else. It's true
we don't face armed insurgents or suicide bombers on our own
soil, but we do face very real danger and loss.
It's becoming more and more obvious as time goes on that we're
expected to say, write, and read the "right" things; that we need
to be careful of those with whom we associate, even loosely; that
our travel and our activities will be monitored to ensure we
behave in certain ways; and that those of us who don't toe the
line will be added to lists and databases, visited by federal
agents, and could even find our lifestyles compromised. If we
don't have anything to hide, we're supposed to welcome random
searches when we travel on airplanes or subways; we're
expected to cooperate with being patted down like the meanest
of criminals just because we happen to have a ticket to Sunday's
game.
While so many spend these weeks showing their love for each
other by offering gifts, it's imperative that we recall that freedom
is the greatest gift of all. And as 2006 begins, it's more important
than ever that we understand that, if we don't witness the rebirth
of freedom in this new year, at the rate we've been going we will
surely live to see the death of it.
Lady Liberty is a graphic designer and pro-freedom activist
currently residing in the Midwest. More of her writings and other
political and educational information is available on her web site,
Lady Liberty's Constitution Clearing House, at
http://www.ladylibrty.com. E-mail Lady Liberty at
ladylibrty@ladylibrty.com.
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